This invention relates to interactive communications, and more particularly, to a system, method and apparatus for communicating in a distributed network via sound instant messages and personal sound identifiers.
One of the more beneficial aspects of the Internet, aside from the vast array of information and content sources it provides, is the varied and newfound ways people can now communicate and stay in touch with one another. Users all around the world, or even just around the corner, may now communicate in a relatively low cost and efficient manner via a myriad of Internet facilities including electronic mail, chat rooms, message boards, text based instant messaging and video tele-conferencing.
These methods of communication offer distinct advantages over standard communicative methods such as paper based mail and conventional telephone calls. For example, facilities like electronic mail are typically considerable faster and cheaper than these conventional methods of communication. Rapidly escalating in popularity is text based instant messaging which offers more instantaneous gratification with respect to interactive communications between two or more users.
However, one main problem with presently available forms of text based instant messaging and facilities like electronic mail is that both text based instant messaging and electronic mail are still both somewhat impersonal, especially compared with something like conventional telephone conversations where vocal intonation, tone and feedback provide a much needed flavor of humanity and personality to the communications. Text based instant messaging and electronic mail also typically require the users to have access to input devices such as keyboards to facilitate the creation and transmission of messages to one user from another. The quality of such communications thus depends heavily on each user""s typing speed, accuracy and network connection quality of service. Furthermore, users without access to input devices such as keyboards may find it very difficult to conduct meaningful conversations without have to endure tedious keystroke input procedures.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a way to communicate with other users in still an efficient and quick manner but with a more personal touch than provided by other modes of electronic based communications.
The present invention is a system, method and apparatus for facilitating communications among a number of distributed users who can send and receive short sound earcons or sound message which are associated with specific conversational messages. The earcons are typically melodies made up of short strings of notes. Users conversing with one another via the earcons are responsible for learning the meaning of each earcon in order to effectively communicate via the earcons. Visual aids may be provided to aid users in learning the meaning of the earcons.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the earcons are represented via visual icons on their respective communicative devices, such as their personal digital assistant devices, personal computers and/or wireless telephones. One embodiment of the present invention is a system for facilitating communication among a plurality of distributed users. The system includes a plurality of distributed communicative devices, a plurality of sound instant messages for playing on each of the distributed communicative devices and a central server which receives a request from one or more of the plurality of distributed communicative devices, transmits the request to one or more of the plurality of distributed communicative devices identified in the request wherein the one or more of the plurality of distributed communicative devices identified in the request will play the one or more of the plurality of sound instant messages also identified in the request.
The present invention is also an apparatus for facilitating distributed communications between a plurality of remote users which includes a display screen, at least one icon displayed on the display screen, the at least one visual icon associated with an earcon made up of a series of notes associated with a communicative message, and a transmitter for transmitting the earcon from the first user to at least one other user.
The present invention also is a method for communicating via sound instant messages which includes receiving one or more sound instant messages, caching the plurality of sound instant messages, receiving a request to play at least one of the cached sound instant messages and playing the at least one of the received sound instant messages from the plurality of cached sound instant messages.
The present invention further includes a method of establishing sound based communications among a plurality of distributed users in a communicative network which includes determining which of the plurality of distributed users are currently on the network, receiving a request from at least one user on the network, wherein the request identifies one or more users in the network and at least one sound instant message designated for the one or more identified users and transmitting the one or more sound instant messages to the one or more identified users in the network.
In the present invention, personal sound identifiers may accompany a sound message or earcon such that the receiving user will be alerted to the identity of the user who sent them the sound message or earcon. The earcons are typically short snippets of song riffs or some otherwise random selection of notes or sounds which are used to uniquely identify each user to one another.